Efficient energy storage performance of electrochemical supercapacitors based on polyaniline/graphene nanocomposite electrodes

Abstract

The fabrication of polyaniline (PANI) and graphene (GN) based composites (PANI-GN) as electrode materials are predicted to encourage the electrochemical properties of solid-state supercapacitors. For the development of high efficiency supercapacitors, the pristine PANI and nanocomposites of PANI with highly conducting two-dimensional graphene have been successfully grown by chemistry-based chemical method. The electrochemical properties of fabricated solid-state supercapacitors established on pristine polyaniline (PANI/PVA/PANI) and polyaniline/graphene based nanocomposites (PANI-GN/PVA/PANI-GN) are reconnoitered through cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charging-discharging (GCD), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The electrochemical device based on PANI electrodes exhibits the charge storage capacity of ~160 F/g with ~64% of capacitance retention. This charge storage capacity of polyaniline electrodes is vastly increased to ~1412 F/g with ~89% of capacitance retention after 10,000 charging-discharging cycles, on the incorporation of 8 wt% of graphene nanosheets in PANI electrodes. The supercapacitor based on nanocomposite of polyaniline with 8 wt% loading of graphene also exhibits significantly high values of energy (~1382 Wh/kg), and power (~49,786 W/kg) densities. The high energy and power storage ability of fabricated electrochemical devices promote the large-scale production of industrial electrochemical energy storage devices based on polyaniline/graphene nanocomposites.